Trump, Mamdani front-and-center in Empire State battle between Hochul, Stefanik

President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani are not on the ballot next year, but they are smack in the political spotlight in New York State's 2026 race for governor.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, in her first interview after declaring her candidacy for governor on Friday, linked Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to Mamdani, the 34-year-old socialist state lawmaker who won election on Tuesday as New York City mayor.

"Kathy Hochul endorsed him and bent the knee," Stefanik charged in an appearance on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," as she pointed to Mamdani, who she claimed is "a raging anti-Semite, pro-Hamas communist who wants to raise taxes."

Firing back, Hochul's campaign branded Stefanik "Sellout Stefanik" in a new social media account and in a new video, as it aimed to anchor the GOP challenger to Trump.

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"Sellout Stefanik is Donald Trump's number one cheerleader in Congress and his right-hand woman in his war on New York: gutting healthcare, jacking up costs with expensive tariffs, and cutting funding for our police, schools, and hospitals," Hochul Campaign Communications Director Sarafina Chitika argued in a statement.

And Chitika claimed Stefanik "is trying to bring Trump's chaos and skyrocketing costs to our state. While Stefanik puts Trump first and New York last."

Politics is larger and louder in New York, the nation's fourth-most-populous state, and that's definitely the case in what's expected to be a competitive and combustible battle for Empire State governor.

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"There's a lot of dynamics at work here. You have Donald Trump. You have the Mamdani factor," Lee Miringoff, director of the New York-based Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, told Fox News Digital.

Republicans have been working to make Mamdani - whose June Democratic mayoral primary victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates sent shockwaves across the nation - as the new face of the Democratic Party, as they aim to paint Democrats as far-left radicals.

That effort has only increased since Mamdani's general election victory earlier this week.

"You have an aggressive campaign by Stefanik that is trying to paint Hochul into a corner," Miringoff said

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Trump, a native New Yorker who now calls Florida home, lost blue-leaning New York by 23 points in his 2020 presidential re-election defeat.

Four years later, Trump made major gains in New York in 2024, as he won back the White House, trimming his deficit in the state by 10 points.

But following Tuesday's elections in left-tilting New Jersey and Virginia, where Democrats won both state's gubernatorial races by convincing double-digit margins, Miringoff said:T "Trump's so-called realignment of 2024 is very short-lived, based on this past week."

It has been more than two decades since a Republican won a New York gubernatorial race. The last was former Gov. George Pataki's re-election in 2002.

But Hochul could face a tough re-election fight.

A former lieutenant governor, Hochul took office in 2021 after Democrat Andrew Cuomo resigned amid multiple scandals.

She defeated then-Rep. Lee Zeldin by just over six points in 2022 to win a full four-year term. But Zeldin's showing was the best by a Republican gubernatorial nominee since Pataki won re-election to a third term in 2002.

And Hochul, a moderate Democrat from Buffalo, is facing a primary challenge from New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, in a very rare move by a lieutenant governor to primary challenge a sitting incumbent.

But Stefanik may not have the Republican nomination to herself.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Trump ally who was re-elected this week, is mulling a bid.

In a statement Friday, Blakeman said the Republican Party "must nominate a candidate that has broad based appeal with independents and common sense Democrats" and that he is "seriously considering" a run for governor.